Over the last decade, a lot of great actors and actresses have emerged as truly special modern talents. There are a handful of these performers that we can almost always count on to deliver truly great performances. But is there a way to determine who is the most consistent? Well, a new study at least tried to, and the results are very interesting.
The study was done by Medium and aimed to see which actors consistently appeared in the highest-rated movies. The site used data from the Taste movie app, which features ratings of movies to gather their data. As for the criteria? The time period was from 2006 to 2016, and the actor or actress had to have appeared in at least 5 movies during that time period, and had to have a leading or major supporting role in those movies. Here is how they did their calculations.
"After rounding up these actors, we calculated each of their scores by averaging the standardized user ratings of their movies produced within the past decade. These standardized ratings are adjusted for individual user taste bias, reflecting a very precise measure of a movie's quality."
Many of the names included on the list should come as a surprise to almost nobody, featuring the likes of Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Brie Larson, Tilda Swinton and of course, Leonardo DiCaprio. What is perhaps surprising is who came out on top. There Will Be Blood and Swiss Army Man star Paul Dano edged out DiCaprio for the top spot. Also perhaps surprising was Domhnall Gleeson coming in at the number three spot, who was largely helped by his work in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Ex Machina last year. His dad Brendan Gleeson wasn't far behind, coming in at the number seven spot.
The list did skew a little heavy on the male side of things, with only nine of the top 30 spots going to ladies. The most consistently great actress, according to the data was Room and future Captain Marvel star Brie Larson. Outside of her recent work, which earned her an Oscar at the most recent Academy Awards, Larson also starred in movies like Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and 21 Jump Street, which helped her to rank so high. She was in very good company, and beat out some incredibly talented and well loved actresses such as Carey Mulligan, Jessica Chastain, and even Dame Judi Dench.
There were 248 actors and actresses in total on the list, and the bottom handful were a mixed bag of the obvious and somewhat surprising. Dwayne The Rock Johnson has definitely found his footing in recent years as a beloved movie star, but his earlier work in movies like Planet 51 and The Tooth Fairy pushed him pretty far down the list, ultimately landing at 241. Not so surprising was Kevin James, who placed dead last for his work in such maligned movies as Grown Ups 2 and Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Megan Fox, Kristen Stewart and Cameron Diaz were among the actresses who weren't very well liked, with Fox landing the lowest on the list at 246. You can check out the full list for yourself in the graphic below. Do you agree or disagree? Who do you think should have taken the top spot?
